


Time To Go

by moonwalkingdead



Category: Walking Dead, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 06:59:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1931109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonwalkingdead/pseuds/moonwalkingdead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And he's here but she's not. AUish. Implied Bethyl. Rated mature because of mentions of suicide. Very short.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time To Go

He can barely breathe, but not because of all the running he's done. The real reason, the _only_ reason in fact, that there isn't enough air in this entire fucked up world to keep his lungs going, is because _she's gone._

 _Left? Right? Straight ahead? Where?!_ He doesn't have a fucking clue which way to go, and he can't track shit on asphalt. So he collapses on the ground because he's exhausted, and because from here he _doesn't fucking know_ where to go.

He just sits there, in the middle of the road, for a long time.

And as he does, he tries really hard to convince himself over and over that he's not supposed to give up, but he knows he already has. He can feel it; draining out of his pores, mingling with his sweat, mixing in with these goddamn tears that he can't cry. It's the fight leaving him completely, if it was even with him in the first place.

Because he thinks it's been with her the whole time, not just survival but _the will to live._ In her frail hands, in between those delicate fingers, within the grasp of a naïve little girl who thinks holding a funeral for a Walker is _fucking beautiful._

And his chest feels so fucking tight just thinking about their time in that place eating peanut butter and pig's feet, tight like he's having some kind of heart attack. 

Cardiac arrest on endless loop, _because that's what you get for getting too fucking close Daryl Dixon._

He wonders how anyone can go on with this kind of pain, this relentless ache that makes him want to claw his own heart out from behind its bars of bone, just so he can be fucking done with _everything._

And all the horrible things he told her outside the cabin comes rushing back -- that everyone from the prison is dead, that they might as well be because she's never going to see them again. His own words mock him now, and it's funny, but in the harshest way.

_She's dead. She might as well be, because you ain't never gonna see her again._

Fuck, what he's willing to give for all this to just be a bad dream, the worst one that there is. Maybe he just dozed off in that coffin, maybe she's still playing the piano and singing that song about drinking beer and _being good._

It's going to be a pain in the ass to find the beer, but he can give being good a shot. He'll never be like her, leaving thank you notes for people who will never come back, _but he can fucking try_. And he wants to try so badly.

But there is no nightmare to wake up from, and she's really gone. She's not here to be good for anymore. 

No one's here, as a matter of fact.

And he can't help it, that the thought of checking out comes to him. A bolt to his temple and it'll all be over. Because losing her is the final straw, and facing a future that doesn't have her is suddenly, startlingly unthinkable. 

And he's not sure when life became unlivable without Beth Greene, but it fucking is now.

_Who would've fucking thought?_

..

When he decides (for the time being) not to kill himself, it's not because he's hopeful. On the contrary. He only decides to live on because it's the best punishment he can think of.

What can be crueler than living without her, right? He doesn't have to commit suicide to reach the fiery depths or to suffer. Hell is right here, right where he's seated. 

_I don't think the good ones survived_ , he remembers telling her, and hating how right he was, still is. Of course they didn't, in this kind of world, they never do. 

_And he's here. But she's not._

And if this is what Beth means about him being the last man standing, then he would rather die like everyone else than be here alone.

 _There goes_ not _killing himself._

Because Daryl's sure that even the last man standing will want a woman by his side come the bitter end, and the only one who has ever come so close, well. 

She's gone.

_Come on Daryl Dixon, it's time to go._


End file.
